Geezer Girl

“Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now....” Bob Dylan

The days of getting carded at bars and liquor stores are long over, however businesses now ask if I have an AARP membership card. Many of my over-the-hill friends are card carrying, certified geezers with the American Association of Retired People. No matter how many times I move, 3 weeks before each birthday every year since I turned 50, AARP finds me and tries to lure me into official geezerhood with enticing offers of discounts on everything from car insurance to canned tuna. They try to indulge me with shiny plastic membership cards assuring me that we're the largest generation to come of age. They feature youthful looking celebs on the cover of their monthly magazine... entertainers who can afford cosmetic surgery, personal yoga and fitness trainers.

So far, I've held steadfast in my refusal to join into the idea of organized elderchild. Although it gives voice to getting older and despite the discounts, frankly, I'm happily in denial of aging. It's no coincidence that I live in Crested Butte, a town unlike any other, full of youth of every generation and closer to that “second star to the right, straight out till morning” of Never Never Land.

When I complain to friends and family about the Senior Service Solicitors stalking me, they scrunch up their faces in disbelief, “But... I'm an AARP member. You should join. There are so many benefits and 20 % off of everything. Everyone's a member now. In fact, you should write for them.” I feel like I'm the only one the aliens from space missed when they hid the big green pods under the beds of those who woke the next morning and found themselves “one of them.”

Baby boomers – the largest generation ever in solidarity subscribing to the philosophy of, “I don't wanna grow up...” So why join a grown up organization? Aging is somewhat inevitable, but no one has to really grow into the prescribed roles our parents were obligated to fulfill... at the still juvenile age of 25, when most Buttians are juggling to finance next year's ski pass, most of the Boomer generation's parents had careers, kids, a Sears' kit home and shiny gas guzzler in garage. The Cleavers. They looked older. They had become their parents. All that changed in the 60s rebellion when the newly found freedom of finally being on our own evolved into different lifestyle choices and breaking out from the material-oriented war generation. Turn on, tune in, drop out. Move to Crested Butte.

In Florida, where everyone once went to retire into tropical shuffleboard and canasta parties, the senior discounts at IHOP start at 55, which is what the retirement age used to be. People were older then. We're younger than that now.

“Hey, Aunt Dawne, you should go for the senior special, it's cheaper,” chirps my 11-year old nephew. Some things are not worth the admission. I order the regular priced massive plate of pancakes, bacon and hash browns with eggs, ignoring calories and cost. I don't feel old or senior... or like skimping on breakfast because most senior days in my town require hardy starts for hiking, biking and skiing endurance or just existing at 9,000 plus feet altitude.

“Yeah, but you're a geezer anyway,” my daughter taunts and cackles. So what defines a geezer? The eccentric old lady with the over-the-top decorated kicksled who rides around in a tutu, fairie wings and a hair color not found in nature?

Crested Butte should start planning now for the predictable future of its mid-timers – the aging hippie boomers who will need the extraordinary. Extra Mountain Express busses for deep winter trips to the second assisted-living commune in Mexico. The RTA cruise ship, funded by 1% for Open Space, as an alternative to a nursing home. The defunct Town Circulator bus, reinstated as the Senior Shuffle, to get us to all the local poker games. Free senior skiing every day on the mountain. The 4th of July parade will have an entire block of peddling PBR-happy seniors in costumes on tricked out tricycles.

I'm sure that I'll never actually reach retirement age because the government keeps pushing it up. Since my generation believes in reinvention rather than retirement anyway, we'll have to improvise financially – but we already have a lot of practical experience in this by living in Crested Butte all these years.

Birthdays tend to collect on our surface like oil on water, reflecting all the resolutions and delusional determination to not age, despite our years. Another birthday is galloping toward me like an unstoppable race horse, kicking up all the dust of doubt and defiance. No matter how hard or deep I dig my heels in, they keep coming. But as my father used to say, before he succumbed to the inevitable, “Kiddo, it beats the alternative...” in his thick Bronx accent and wisdom.

This week, in honor of my “Beats the Alternative Day,” I bought a new all-purple lacy outfit as part of a KBUT radio pledge... complete with satin gloves, fishnet stockings, dazzling jewels and of course, a short flouncy crinoline tutu... most appropriate for that downward slide on the other side closer to reinvention.

In despair Captain Hook cried out, ”'Tis some fiend fighting me! Who are you, Pan?”
“I'm youth!” cried Peter, “I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg. I'm youth! I'm joy!” He was Peter Pan. He would stay Peter Pan, the boy who would never grow up... from the book Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.

Snow Child

Photo: Sophia, Terror of the Slopes (photo by Lisa D'Arrigo)

The absurdity of having a gold pass in an epic snow year and not once using it was bordering on therapy-worthy psychosis. The excuses were valid and numerous – no time with 3 jobs, I was still wearing balance-warping glasses that fogged up at every turn and didn't want to sacrifice any more hard earned wages on prescription goggles or sunglasses when lasek surgery was only a few weeks away, and somehow every rare day I had off seemed to blow in 25 below weather with raging cyclone winds.

Like stage fright, I was having anxiety attacks about both skiing and not skiing. Besides, I'm not an accomplished alpine skier. Admittedly, I really just like to don the ipod with kicking tunes blasting as loud as the equivalent of a stack of old Marshall amps – avoiding bumps, difficult terrain and bad weather, in contrast to almost all of my friends, and dance down the intermediate blue groomers. I stop at least a dozen or more times to gaze in awe at the clouds and sharply edged vertical whiteness against brilliant blue sky, gasping at views that require me to squeal, “Damn, I live in Paradise.”

So it was that my editor, realizing my neurosis, finally command nudged me, “Sophia and I are going skiing Friday. You should come. She goes slow but can ski blues so you'll be fine.” Sophia... another 5-year old Crested Buttian who's been on tiny boards since she could crawl and can “pizza” through the expert only Teocalli Bowl and back while you were still scoping out your line. I made the mistake the first year I returned to skiing, after a 20-year hiatus from the Butte, in asking a 6-year old local friend if she wanted to ski with me.
“So Taylor, where did you ski today?” I smiled as she got on the town bus.
“The glades,” her tiny voice responded. Watching the color drain from my face at the thought of skiing a double black diamond run through thick trees she laughed and added, “Don't worry, it's easy... all you do is plant, turn, scream.” At that moment, I knew I was way out of my league and dropped the ski buddy request for both our sakes.

Local kids are fearless. They have no concept of what gravity and speed can do to an adult body because as little cannon balls, compact and close to the ground, falling doesn't have as much of an impact. They learn about skiing in their young lives before they can utter a word – at 1 month they're in baby packs on their parents' backs, bumping down the steeps of Jokerville run and laughing like it's bouncing on mom's knee. By the time they're out of diapers they're wedging down the 5-foot moguls of Resurrection like little stuffed dolls on 2 sticks. It's as natural as breathing. So it's no wonder that by the time they’re in their pre-teens they can deftly huck themselves off cliffs at warp speed and compete in the World Extremes Competitions.

Friday morning skies were bluebird and the air was warm – at least above 20 degrees – tropical in comparison to previous weeks of sub arctic spells. It would be like a day at the beach on the slopes.
“Can we ski the glades?” the miniscule Sophia asked excitedly after patiently tolerating a couple of muscle reminder warm-up runs down Paradise for me.
“How about Painter Boy and we go for hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream?” I coyly offered, hoping to intentionally sidetrack the whippersnapper.

The next day dawned as bright and clear as the day before. I lay in bed, muscles in a fever, not surprisingly having been thoroughly out-skiied by a 5-year old snow princess. I determined hair of the dog would be the appropriate fix – as soon as I could drag my pounded inner skeletal out of bed.

Not a child in sight to have to compete with or justify my whimpiness to, I glided down my favorite runs, soaking up the scenery and the long absent glorious sun, savoring each moment of solo girlie geezer skiing.

Bring Me a Higher Love

“Love me, love my dog”... from an old proverb that if you love someone, you must accept everything about them, even their faults and weaknesses.

There, delivered into my online cupid.com dating prospectives with great exclamation, fanfare, and a whopping 5 stars out of the maximum 5 for compatibility was my ex-boyfriend. I wondered what the probability was that the robotic matchmaker hooked me up with my recently former Mr. Wonderful when millions of men all over the world who registered on the match website might fit into the required parameters stated in my profile. The odds were staggering. Either there was a serious glitch in the matchmaking determination program or the web-bound love fairies were up to their mischievous tricks again. Either way, the intrigue was too much and my curiosity clicked into his profile.

Grinning in a brightly flamboyant suit jacket – hand painted 20 years ago by his first wife – my old bolo tie hung from his neck and the caption “Jumping in” next to his hopeful mug shot. And in jumping in… to the tar pit of limitless web love possibilities, he had keenly answered each of the formulaic and predictable profile questions... “What will I find in your bedroom?” “What are five things you can't live without?” “If you could be anywhere, where would you be right now?” “___ is sexy, ___ is sexier...” There he was... baiting the waters like an eager fisherman.

As online introductions go, this is the normal procedure for weeding through the hordes of the less compatible – cheeky, inane predetermined questions you meticulously, with heartfelt sincerity, answer while trying to sound intelligent and attract the most well suited mate.

Of course, the double irony of the pensively answered questionnaire is that everyone's first consideration in the primary picking of romantic potentials is the photo anyway... sorry, but you can be as verbally charming or intellectually vibrant as you can muster, however, no one will click on an unattractive photo. This is America the beautiful, remember? The second inconsistency is that everyone applying to the online soul mate search concept wants to be unique beyond definition – “I'm special, different, not the norm, like no one you've ever met.” In reality, the natural animalistic selection process hasn't evolved far from the Neanderthal scratch-and-sniff stage. Scratch the surface with a few clever comments and sniff around... broadband hunting. The new 21st century fern bar is an online pick up scene equivalent to cruising in the 70s and 80s.

“But why would we want to limit ourselves by defining our relationship?" If you ever hear this and think you're in a mutually serious domestic partnership ... RUN. So, there was my 5-star mega-match – the man who consistently balked at the idea of introducing me as his girlfriend for fear of being defined – online and filling in the little blanks written by some fashion magazine psychologist that identify boundaries of personality intimacies. It was too rich.

It is as laughable as it is awkward when the criteria insists you're perfect for each other... were we actually karmically meant for each other or is the universe just a cosmic comic with a fabulous sense of humor? Like the Pina Colada song popular in the 70s where the duplicitous couple meets after anonymously writing to each other from a singles ad, not realizing they were already in love and living together, I wondered if maybe we were possibly meant for each other after all... maybe the robotic matchmaker was right.

"None of this is real, so don’t take it so seriously," he philosophized about the physical world... the excuse to dismiss the entire universe, perhaps for his own absolution, was received with amused certainty – I knew there had to be a higher love, depth that went beyond fear of interpretation. After all, even dark matter, that blackness of supposed emptiness occupying the space between matter in the cosmos, has definition… even “nothing” in its defiance to be “anything”, is therefore defined.

Recently, during an interview with an animal channeler for an article, the psychic asked if I had once had a black and white dog with a “j” in the name.
“Well, yes... but Benjamin passed away in 1986.”
“Yes, and he wants to know why you don't want another dog,” she queried for my long departed fuzzed-faced friend. “He knows you have to travel and is willing to come back as a small breed so he can go anywhere with you.” After trying to justify my independence to a dead dog whose love and unconditional devotion refused to leave me unprotected in the world, I finally gave in to the thought... here was a proud Border Collie, waiting and ready to come back even as a yappy lap dog just to be with me... is there a higher love than that?

As my old friend Lonesome Bob says, “Try to be the person your dog thinks you are...” Happy Valentine's Day... may you find a higher love that truly transcends definition... and a box a fine chocolates.